We went for Derek’s 18 month check up on November 26. He remains in the 5th percentile for height and weight. However the doctor was very impressed with his vocabulary! On the developmental check sheet it asks, “Can your child say 8 words other than Mama and Dada?” I giggled when I saw that because my child can say at least 40 words other than Mama and Dada. At this point he is not using Mama and Dada anymore either, it is Mommy and Daddy in our house. Two of the best words ever uttered by an 18 month old!
So after refreshing my memory of what the expected vocabulary of an 18 month old is, I became very proud of my child’s accomplishments. The average child his age says 5-20 words. I do know that I was speaking complete sentences by the time I was 2 years old so this could be partly genetic. But I also believe it has to do with the things we do with him at home.
- We read 10-15 books to him every night. He brings us book after book and we just keep reading them. We point out pictures in the books and tell him what they are. We ask him questions like “point to the bird” and he does.
- We limit T.V. He “watches” maybe 30 minutes in the morning before going to daycare. On the weekend it might be a little longer. Generally he isn’t even interested in it anyway. He only pays attention when there is a song. At night, we don’t turn the T.V. on until after he goes to bed. Many times we listen to music instead. I made a play list on my ipod of kids songs for him.
- Occasionally we watch Letter Factory by Leapfrog during dinner. It teachers the names of letters and the letter sounds. At this point, he knows the sounds for A, B, C, D, F, H, P, and W.
- We have recently started asking him to say “please” and “thank you”. Today he started doing it without prompting! It was so exciting when he said “pees” for a piece of chicken and “tank u” when I handed it to him. It melted my heart!
- We never correct him when he says words incorrectly (which is the majority of the time). We also never use his version of the word when we say it so that he will hear it correctly and eventually correct it himself. For example, he says “nana” for banana. We always say “do you want a banana?” or “here’s a banana.” Modeling correct vocabulary is important. We never said “baba” for bottle.
- In addition to his vocabulary and letter sounds, he also knows several animal noises and all of his body parts. These are all things we practice with him at home.
We do all of the above things because they are a priority for us. Sitting him in front of the T.V. because we have things to do is not something we are into. This is probably why we have so many unfinished projects going on. We don’t do things for “us” until after he goes to bed. It’s all about priorities.
It is important to remember that all children develop at different rates. The activities you do at home can help foster this development, but they still won’t do it until they are ready.
